Friday, September 1, 2017

After acquiring an American degree in horticulture, educated to be a guy in a truck mowing grass, blowing clippings, siting plants in outcurves/incurves to grow oversized for extra monetizing pruning, needful of fertilizer, chemicals to kill Nature, and a real nice irrigation system, let's not forget the yearly replenishment of mulch, and twice yearly exchange of colorful annuals, all bundled into a tidy yearly contract, $$$. Hey, who needs more? Me.
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Late 20's when I began decades of European travel, studying historic gardens, I didn't have words to describe what I was seeking, only words describing what I didn't want about gardens, a few above. In lieu of words, I was listening to my heart. Traipsing off, sure of discovery, unaware a pupil of E.M.Forster for sure.
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Blessedly, the first study tour, England & mostly Scotland, I got the memo. More, the memo arrived, narrated by General Patton, aka George C. Scott.

Pic, above, here.
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When I hosted my own garden show on CBS-TV their mantra was, don't-tell-me-SHOW-me.
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Exactly how I learned across Europe. Their historic gardens full of show, and loaded with delightfully intuitive conversation, 'tell', from all the gardeners & owners the sites had the privilege of working with across centuries.
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Quite the example, SHOW, above. About lost all my knee strength seeing this, decades ago. Understanding ALL. Immediately, understanding all. Where that comes from, intuitive understanding, aka epiphany or koan, I metaphor to my Muse. Like it was said toward the end of Dr. Zhivago, 'A gift'.
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In hindsight I went to Europe a horticulturist/plantswoman, returned a Garden Designer. If I was told this would happen, zero chance I would have believed it. None.
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What did I hear General Patton say from all those years ago? "Rommel, you magnificent bastard, I read your book!" Quite the proper image popping into mind. Bombs exploding, Patton winning, he spoke like a warrior, the type I knew. Age 10, seeing the film when it came out at the theater with my family. Dad the NASA engineer made it obvious Patton had nothing on him with language or results. Though, sister/me were deeply impressed at the dinner table one evening, while Chris Craft was director at JSC, dad said, "Chris Craft has the foulest mouth of any man I've met." We silently made knowing eye contact, "We must hear this Chris Craft." Ha, never did. But the awe remains. Amusing, now, when Beloved says, "You can dog cuss." A skill I don't use often, perhaps when the little toe on the right foot is broken standing on the bow of a boat trying to hitch the hook from the hoist inside the boathouse.
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Patton's bombs exploding, from the clip, are pure Joseph Campbell, Power of Myth, slaying the dragon, every scale of its hide a metaphor of "Thou Shalt."
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Why tell these stories, above? These stories are the people hiring me, for decades. People who've intuited their rabbit hole, gone in a little, maybe a great distance, yet for the Thou Shalt's of their lives, not the full distance. Job, children, health, many Thou Shalt's, yet intuiting all, without words, just able to still hear a bit of their distant heart. My life, needing to work for filthy lucre yet a heart unable to stay in the dire depths of Thou Shalt, instead, creating my own job, and taking it. Collateral with infertility, a great wealth of time granted, honoring that gift, jumping into the rabbit hole, seeking & finding what the heart spoke without words.
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Garden & Be Well, XOT
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JOSEPH CAMPBELL (words of Chief Seattle, 1852): “The President in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. But how can you buy or sell the sky, the land? The idea is strange to us. Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, all are holy in the memory and experience of my people. We’re part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters. The bear, the deer, the great eagle, these are our brothers. Each ghostly reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water’s murmur is the voice of my father’s father; the rivers are our brothers. They carry our canoes and feed our children.

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If we sell you our land, remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also receives his last sigh. This we know: the earth does not belong to man. Man belongs to the earth. All things are connected, like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.

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“Your destiny is a mystery to us. What will happen when the buffalo are all slaughtered? What will happen when the secret comers of the forest are heavy with the scent of many men, and the view of the ripe hills is blotted by talking wires? The end of living and the beginning of survival. When the last red man has vanished with his wilderness and his memory is only the shadow of a cloud moving across the prairie, will these shores and forests still be here? Will there be any spirit of my people left? We love this earth as the newborn loves its mother’s heartbeat. So, if we sell you our land, love it as we have loved it; care for it as we’ve cared for it, hold in your mind the memory of the land as it is when you receive it. .Preserve the land for all children and love it, as God loves us all. One thing we know, there is only one God; no man be he red man or white man can be apart. We are brothers, after all.”
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Bold letters mine. The 'dire' I had to run from, choosing to live, not merely survive. Beware of choosing to live, it rocks the boat for others in your life. Bigly.

Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Attracted to the marvelous sliding doors, below, the wood stoop and small planters had me send this fabulous home & garden to my Pinterest Changes board. Lastly, a 3rd issue from garden to kitchen for the Changes board. Especially a home with young'ish children and these gorgeous interior wood floors.
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A mini Garden Design course in 2 photos.
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Do you see all 3 changes immediately?
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I'll give you a moment to look at both pics carefully. There is an easy inexpensive solution for the stoop, and a better, not inexpensive solution for the stoop. At the open sliding door threshold is a minor 4th issue. See the easy fix for issue 4?
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Classic mistakes, below. Human nature ! At the front end, before getting a Horticulture degree, then traipsing Europe for 2+ decades studying historic gardens I made the same mistakes too. Once you know what the Garden Design mistakes are, your eye is trained to see them, correct them, easily, every time.
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Of course there may be zero mistakes, below, solutions could already be designed, just not installed. A likely scenario if you take a tour of the interior, here.
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Look at the pair of pics, below, again. Got your Garden Design solutions?

Pics, above, here.
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Change #4, the door mats inside & outside should match. The tight space will enlarge, flow, and become more of a 'foyer' between inside/outside instead of the current abrupt divide. My choice would be a pair of door mats, large, similar in looks to the existing mat inside the home already.
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Change #3, transition from beautiful stone terrace to gravel to wood stoop to interior of home. This change makes me smile, I made the same mistake as a garden designer in my 20's. Matching stone from the terrace should be installed into the gravel transitioning to the wood stoop. Why? Significantly reduces amount of gravel stuck in shoes, or paws, to be tracked inside, and gouging/scratching that beautiful wood floor.
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Change #2, Dinky is Stinky, need much larger pots at those sliding doors, and wider apart, setting them left/right off the wood stoop. Remove 2 bushes at right of wood stoop, replace their planting bed with more gravel.
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Change #1, will start with cheap/easy do it today. Stain the wood stoop same color as sliding doors. The house is much too elegant for this wood stoop left over from the set of F Troop. A more expensive change to the wood stoop, replace it with a single slab of stone, custom cut the same or a bit deeper. Wood stoop vs. stone landing. Already the verbage is a nicer story.
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Again, seeing the interior of this home, I think the 'Change' layers I've mentioned are already on their to-do list. Their attention to detail quite wonderful.
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Garden & Be Well, XO T
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Put that green extension cord under the gravel. I know you already thought that. A funny thing about gardening, the small victories. Just getting the cord buried is a big deal, having the door mats match.....

Friday, April 8, 2016

Off the edge of perfect, below, beyond perfect.
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Have never understood the predilection for oversized lights at a front door. Studying historic gardens across Europe for decades, diminutive lighting, compared to USA, is the memo.
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Tara Turf, below, to the foundation. Alone, enough to instigate a nastygram from any HOA. Here's the deal with Tara Turf, it's a rich way to live, according to Providence. And me.
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Opulent patina, not pressure washed away, on the walls, below.

Pic, above, here.
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Who knew I would ever think a collection of little green meatballs was charming? Indeed, these are. Here, they are a whimsical pun. You already thought the same thing, right?
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The pair of small spheres. Swoon. Their plinths, double swoon.
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Notice the climbing roses? Not the physical plant but what they do for the design. Taking very little space, espaliered, they give maximum lush.
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Tiny gravel, above, color of the house, drifting into most-of-a-circle tiny flagstone, again colored to the house, terrace. With no edging between gravel/plants or gravel/flagstones. Your already picked up on this huge detail, edging, right?
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Enfilade, above, is something we have at our ca. 1900 American farmhouse. Ours, 80' long, with heart of pine floor, I'll have to figure out how to get the shot, we even have the trees in back, but our pond is behind the trees.
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Our house, now, has a small gravel parking court in front, we kept the previous owner's half-round of bricks at the front steps. Unbelievable, the vernacular language is the same, this home, above, and ours.
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This front door, above, says the most important thing, "Welcome." And, "You want to come inside, this house is interesting, the people who live here I want to know and see more, the garden, and....."
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Garden & Be Well, XO T
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Beloved is a pressure washing fool. One of these days, at present I leave the premises when he pressure washes, I will stand my ground, and instead of crime scene tape outlining a body on the ground, Beloved will pressure wash around my body on the wall of our home. If this were our home, above, I know his pressure washer would have something 'wrong' with it each time he tries to use it. Buy a new one? It would have something 'wrong', always, too.

Friday, January 16, 2015

Still in use, their barn, more than a century later, its current garden design pulls deep admiration.

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Simplicity.

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Mostly, these barns are rotting/caving-in/gone across USA.

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Go off the grid? These barns are original off the grid support.

Field gathered stones, below, still functioning.

Perhaps my favorite view of the barn, below. Simplicity of garden design, and views into the guts of its architecture. What is the narrative? Was it added on to? More than once?

Barn still in use, above, totally garden designed. Yet, to most, it will seem derelict, dangerous, and they will think, "Why don't they do something, or tear it down?" Without realizing the brain power creating this current narrative with form/function. More than brain power, a relationship with Providence.
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Would you be this bold, above, as a garden designer?
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Simplicity is a hard/impossible task.
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Simplicity requires the ego to mask itself.
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No worries about that, once you realize your ego can shine via the simplicity.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Arrived with friends, for dinner, at Glen Ella near dusk, the later seating was booked. Cold, little light, and everyone walked toward the entry, and warmth. Not me. I forgot they existed. My behavior, whence a good garden appears, targeted on the hunt. The garden, camera, me, a trinity & zone flying beyond time, social acceptance, whatever. Poor unfortunate souls needing drugs to arrive in this zone.
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Have met 1 other soul with this trinity to Nirvana, in Italy, a Delta pilot. He/I were constantly in each other's way and beyond irritated, beyond the moon irritated. A few days of this hell we knew some sort of 'arrangement' had to be discovered, some sort of 'friendship'. Finally, we spoke. Of course he had to let me know he was a Captain, and a bit about his lovely large home etc. Woo-woo, let him know a friend's dad had been a Flying Tiger, and original pilot hire by Delta, and he lived around the corner from me growing up. Told you we didn't like each other up front. And by the way, someone had to train the astronauts how to fly their rockets, uh, that would be my dad in the simulator with them, former Air Force test pilot. Isn't it rare the events bringing out our best 7 year old selves, in a snit? Oh that archaic lizard brain. You know exactly what happened next. Talked our way to what is best for both of us, have been true friends since. He's a wonderful pilot, and person, the best. Adore his wife, she's a junker for antiques too.
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Grew up knowing the neighbor was a Flying Tiger. Thought it was euphemism. During college saw a movie with John Wayne, Flying Tigers. Consistently, when I'm wrong, it's never a little.

Saturday, June 28, 2014

Now, flow exists around the entire home.
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Flow. Is it easy to walk around the entire home?
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90% of my out-of-state Garden Design work has come from past clients hiring me for their new home. They've each said the same thing, "You helped me sell my home, fast." The ubiquitous beauty, color, lighting, etc. was important but I know the, unexpected, #1 reason they assume their Garden Design helped sell their home. Flow.
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Flow. Get you some.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client,local/on-line.

Monday, May 12, 2014

Easy knowing they use their front porch, below. Mosquito repellent sitting at the French doors on the right.

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Their front yard is large & they have children.

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Foundation plantings here are an interesting choice.

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Of course, they have a fabulous large back yard too.

Privacy isn't needed otherwise the foundation plantings would be a bit taller.

Would you, if this were your home, keep the foundation plantings or move them & replace with steps?
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Plant selection is perfecto. Large house & garden, 2 careers, children, dogs, and a yard easy to maintain.
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Always ask questions. Makes you an instant garden designer.
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If this were a town home front porch it's amazing how a bit of height on the foundation plantings provide a sitting area with privacy.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics at a soiree last weekend. This house is close-in Atlanta. A pocket of woodland in the city.
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client,local/on-line.

Urns fabulous enough to be empty were designed & plinths for height adjustment. Ironically, Miss Florida, who always says, I don't know anything, has consistently put in seasonal arrangements from prunings in her garden.

I also took away the foundation plantings, aka green meatballs, and used espaliered fruit trees + groundcovers.
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The white is too white on the house. Alas, it had just been painted before I was hired.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken at jobsite last week. We are doing a new layer! The drive, front woodland & upper arrival drive. Cannot wait for the groundcovers to fill in, brown dead mulch, anywhere, has touched my last nerve.
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Friday, April 5, 2013

Beware the landscape contractor, with one of my Garden Designs, "No, can't be done."

Stupid does have a price tag.
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Fieldstone retaining wall, above, in dirt. No concrete + mortar. Italy has quite a few olive orchards, older than Christ, still holding proud their fieldstone in dirt terracing.
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Stupid-does-have-a-price-tag, said fieldstone in dirt did not work, he wanted to make more money with concrete, mortar, chipped stone. I don't use him anymore. My jobs have grossed millions since then. Do the math.
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When I mention my Team it's from the heart & head. They make my designs better. Why did I fall for SDHAPT? I met the author of Never Be Lied to Again, when I was the garden expert on NBC-TV morning show. Zero awareness of those lying to me at that time.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic Old Long Island.

Monday, March 18, 2013

When the competition is an old Pecan Orchard I know to go simple, below.

Soon the tea olive, above, will engulf the end of the porch. And then be pruned into a tunnel, for the pure life necessity of leaving the porch at its tiniest entry. Silent Partner doesn't think this is needed. He has his reasons, I have mine. 200 acres and I am particularly interested in this square foot.

My competition, above. Fields, Pecan Orchard & Home, a perfect trinity.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken this month at jobsite of several recent posts. Leaving the Pecan Orchard alone includes creating Tara Turf, siting daffodils, boxwood & historic brick path, keeping fence at the road and saying 'no' to foundation plantings.
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Another fabulous Landscape Design making me unemployable to the largest landscape design/build/maintain companies across USA. Planned obsolescence of irrigation, keeping fence, no foundation shrubs, no zoysia, no annuals.
.MATH on what 'those' companies would lose in installation & a single decade of maintenance with my design. New fence, irrigation system & rows-upon-rows-upon-rows of green meatball shrubs. Lawn: 2 acres sod, mowing, irrigation, pre-emergents, fertilizer, edging. Shrubs: several prunings yearly, mulch in the beds, pre-emergents, fertilizing, replanting annuals 2/year.
.Minimum annuals charge is $500/season by the best firm (of course I use the best, Simply Flowers, & of course they are needed in many commercial, and residential situations.) Monthly maintenance $500. Fence $4000, irrigation $4000, mulch 350/year, chemicals/fertilizer 200/year, & foundation shrubs $5000, 2 acres zoysia sod $52,800..$141,300.00 for a decade of traditional USA Landscape Design. My Landscape Design, above, $50/month maintenance fee, no foundation plantings, no irrigation, no chemicals, no mulch, little pruning, no sod, little mowing, keep fence, no fertilizer, no annuals, $6,000 for a decade. (A kind woman, I give away the concrete foundation expense of the brick path, mine are in dirt. Otherwise add another $5000)
.$135,300.00 difference. .Has the math sunk in? .My work/style is not meant to save money, yet it does. It's historic Italian. Enfilade from the interior of the home, pollinator habitat, a thanks to Providence, a joy to look at and live within. When away on vacation my gardens are carried in the heart with a yearning to know everything while gone & return soon. If you can leave at all.
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Chill Pill Urban Ag! There are other ways in this industry to make money. Ask Silent Partner ! Thank you for letting me be on your Outreach team.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

New construction completed earlier this year, below. House & garden stand sentry as old souls.

Shadows fall on their proscenium as atonement.

As if they think, "Of course we abide here. This is ours, the rent we pay is grace."
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken at a jobsite last week. Asked the client for a walk through with both of them. Wanting to know, "How are the parts working?" A lot of challenges with this site & no room for error. Exactly my type of fun.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Aside from lust pure astonishment. This retaining wall is hidden away in the family parking court. That murdering Roman thing with stone building slaves ca. 1 BCE, then the poverty cycle with the bricks. Later, much later. But here it all is, in narrative. Mine.

Another chapter to the story, below, at the end of the retaining wall. Tuscan hillside, fieldstone steps are Jane Austen rusticities.

Framing my lust, below, relative to the house. Steps & hillside look as if they were there, leftover from some ancient Roman volcano. Vesuvius, 79 ad?

She, the owner, waylayed me. Oh no, ick. Grabbing my right arm in both her hands saying, "I'm taking you to the Bellsouth room." I had no time for this, so deeply involved in my lust for the retaining wall, fieldstone steps, & garden. Outwardly nice, inwardly thinking how to get away. Get back to her garden.

She marched straight here, above, my arm still in her hands. "Isn't this the greatest spot? I love looking at it and go to the bench often, have you ever seen steps like this, &....."

My attitude went 180. Couldn't get enough of her. That bench? Of course I hadn't seen it from terrace level. The bench overlooks the 18th hole of a PGA yearly stop.

Portion of the Bellsouth room, above. We paid it 'no mind' as Neil Diamond would sing. I was in girl-crush as we walked the rest of her house & grounds spilling life stories, work, men, spirit.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken at my lecture venue last weekend. Love how conversations flow with women amongst my tribe. How did EM Forster know us so well?

Monday, March 19, 2012

Landscape Design after, above. A bit of work so obvious no one thinks a Landscape Designer is needed. Afterall, the builder & previous Landscape Designer missed it, below.

Did you notice a pendant light was added too? Top pic.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics sent by the client from a jobsite last week. She wanted to do this for years. Her husband said, 'why do we need to do this?'

Monday, November 14, 2011

Cheapest choice when I began my career. Now, depending upon the jobsite, pre-cut stone is cheaper. Easier to handle they reduce labor expense.
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Of course, my favorite, is field stone.
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Oddly, at the front end of availability pre-cut stone steps were the most expensive.
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More odd, I meet people now, who think field stone steps are, by far, the cheaper choice.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Found the pic online. Must put in some days taking pics of our projects, good excuse to see them again too.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

A 40 acre Alabama garden I'm working on has the bones of Gertrude Jekyll's home, Munstead Wood, below.I've been asked to put in a swimming pool off the back terrace. Seeing these curves, above, I knew immediately how to shape the swimming pool.

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How do I design 40 acres? I start at the house.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pic via internet. All my travels in England, and never to Munstead Wood.

Consider all of the above & you won't wait 3 years, or 3 seconds, for a beautiful garden.

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Proof is in the pics above.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Look at the new frontdoor again. See what I did? Took out the transom, replaced with a taller door. Getting rid of that subdivisiony horrendous aspect, ca. 1970's, of windows/door at same height. Guess how we chose the color for the frontdoor? (Another post.)

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Eco Gardening is a SMALL concept. Vanishing Threshold is how I create a garden.